#52FilmsByWomen: INTO THE FOREST

43/52 INTO THE FOREST

I’ve actually made a decision to do films with female leads now for the rest of my life. The history of cinema is so horrifically unbalanced, that the little that I can do to re-balance it — I love seeing women be interested and complicated and strong. If the men are doing male characters and I am doing male characters, then who is going to do the female characters?

Canadian writer/director Patricia Rozema’s career spans such diverse but beautiful films as I’ve Heard Mermaids Singing, Grey Gardens, Mansfield Park and Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. For television she’s directed on Tell Me You Love Me, In Treatment and Mozart in the Jungle.

Into the Forest is a profoundly female take on an apocalyptic event that bonds two sisters even closer as they learn to survive in a new world. The cinematography and shot composition is stunning and perfectly illuminates the material. Ellen Page–who produced and brought the original novel to Patricia Rozema to adapt–and Evan Rachel Wood, as the co-leads, are as good as ever and it’s a pleasure to see them together on screen.

Many of the reviews I read focused on the film’s quiet and almost anti-climatic approach to storytelling. I, however, was deeply affected by this film’s commitment to the feminine point-of-view and to the truth that female journeys are often internally experienced rather than externally expressed. As the oldest of three sisters, I couldn’t help but watch the story through the lens of, What would we do in that situation? It made me homesick and grateful for my sisters and the complex bond that this film so accurately captures.

This is a journey worth taking. Into the Forest is available on Amazon Prime.